THE SIGNAL AT "DANGER"
Alison lost little time in making his promised attack on Jenny; he was
not the man to let the grass grow under his feet. It might be improper
to say that he chose the wrong moment--for no moment could be wrong from
his point of view, and the one most wrong from a worldly aspect might
well be to his mind the supremely right. Yet according to that purely
worldly standpoint the time was unfortunate. Jenny had a great many
other things to think of--very pressing things: as to many of us, so to
her, her religious position perhaps seemed a matter which could wait.
Moreover--by a whimsical chance--the Rector ran up against another
difficulty: to Jenny it was a refuge, of which she availed herself with
her usual dexterity. When one attack pressed her, I am convinced that
she absolutely welcomed the advent of another from the opposite
direction. Between the two she might slip out unhurt; at any rate, if
one assailant called on her to surrender, she could bid him deal with
the other first. The analogy is not exact--but there was a family
likeness between her balancing of Fillingford against Octon and the way
in which, assailed by Alison, she interposed, as a shield, the views
urged on her by Mrs. Jepps. Displayed in a less serious campaign--less
serious, I mean, to Jenny's thinking--yet it was, in essence, the same
strategy--and it was a strategy pretty to watch. Be it remarked that
Jenny was busy keeping friends with everybody during these anxious
weeks.
Mrs. Jepps--if I have said it before, it will bear repetition--was a
power in Catsford, in the town itself. She might be said to lead the
distinctively town society. Age, wealth, character, and a certain
incisiveness of speech combined to strengthen her position. She was a
small old lady, with plentiful white hair; she had been pretty--save for
a nose too big; in her old age she bore a likeness to Cardinal Newman,
but it would never have done to tell her so--she would as soon have been
compared to the Prince of Darkness himself. For she was a most
pronounced Evangelical, and her feud with Alison was open and
inveterate. She disapproved profoundly of "the parish clergyman"; she
called him by that title, whereas he called himself "the priest in
charge"; for his "assistant priests" she would know no name but
"curates." There had been an Education Question lately; the fight had
waxed abnormally hot over the souls--almost over the bodies--of Catsford
urchins, male and female, themselves somewhat impervious to the bearings
of the controversy. Into deeper differences it is not necessary to go.
The Rector thought her one of the best women he knew, but one of the
most wrong-headed. Put man for woman--and she exactly reciprocated his
opinion; and it is hard to deny, though sad to admit, that her zeal for
Jenny's spiritual awakening was stirred to greater activity by the
knowledge that Alison had put his hand to the alarm. To use a homely
metaphor, they were each exceedingly anxious that the awakened sleeper
should get out on what was, given their point of view, the right side of
the bed.
To Jenny--need I say it?--this situation was rich in possibilities of
staying in bed. In response to appeals she might put one foot out on one
side, then the other foot out on the other; she would think a long while
before she trusted her whole body to the floor either on the right or on
the left. She did not appreciate in the least the fiery zeal which urged
her to one side or the other: but she knew that it was there and allowed
for its results. To her mind she had two friends--while she lay in bed;
a descent on either side might cost her one of them. While she
hesitated, she was precious to both. For the rest, I believe that she
found a positive recreation in this ecclesiastical dispute; to play off
Mrs. Jepps against Alison was child's play compared to the much more
hazardous and difficult game on which she was embarked. Child's
play--and byplay; yet not, perhaps, utterly irrelevant. It would have
been easy to say "A plague on both your houses!" But even Mercutio did
not say that till he was wounded to death, and Jenny was more of a
politician than Mercutio. She asked both houses to dinner--and took
pains that they should meet.
They met several times--with more pleasure to Mrs. Jepps than to the
Rector. He fought for conscience' sake, and for what he held true. So
did she--but the old lady liked the fighting for its own sake also.
Jenny's attitude was "I want to understand." She pitted them against one
another--Mrs. Jepps's "Letter of the Scriptures" against Alison's "Voice
of the Living Church," his "Primitive Usage and Teaching of the Fathers"
against her "Protestantism and Reformation Settlement." It is not
necessary to deny to Jenny an honest intellectual interest in these and
kindred questions, although her concern did not go very deep--but for
her an avowed object always gained immensely in attraction from the
possibility of some remoter and unavowed object attaching to it. If the
avowed object of these prolonged discussions was the settlement of
Jenny's religious convictions, the remoter and unavowed was to keep
herself still in a position to reward whichever of the disputants she
might choose finally to hail as victor. Policy and temperament both went
to foster this instinct in her; the position might be useful, and was
enjoyable; her security might be increased, her vanity was flattered.
Jenny stayed in bed!
In secular politics her course was no less skillfully taken. She did
indeed declare herself a Conservative--there was no doubt, even for
Jenny's cautious mind, about the wisdom of that step--and gave Bertram
Ware a very handsome contribution toward his Registration expenses; the
expenses were heavy, Ware was not a rich man, and he was grateful. But
at that time the question of Free Trade against Protection--or Free
Imports against Fair Trade, if those terms be preferred--was just coming
to the front, under the impetus given by a distinguished statesman.
Fillingford, the natural leader of the party in the county division, was
a convinced Free Trader. Ware had at least a strong inclination for Fair
Trade. After talks with Fillingford and talks with Ware, Jenny gave her
contribution, but accompanied it by an intimation that she hoped Mr.
Ware would do nothing to break up the party. The hint was significant.
Between the two sections which existed, or threatened to exist, in her
party, Jenny--with her estate and her money--became an object of much
interest. They united in giving her high rank in their Primrose
League--but neither of them felt sure of her support.
To complete this slight sketch of the public position which Jenny was
making for herself, add Catsford highly interested in and flattered by
the prospect of its Institute, grateful to its powerful neighbour for
her benefits, perhaps hopefully expectant of more favors from the same
hand--proud, too, of old Nick Driver's handsome and clever daughter.
Catsford was both selfishly and sentimentally devoted to Jenny, and of
its devotion Mr. Bindlecombe was the enthusiastic and resonant herald.
Her private relations, though by no means free from difficulty, were at
the moment hardly less flattering to her sense of self-importance,
hardly less eloquent of her power. Fillingford was ready to offer her
all he had--his name, his rank, his stately Manor; Octon lingered at
Hatcham Ford, hoping against hope for her, unable to go because it was
her will that he should stay: at her bidding young Lacey was
transforming himself from a gay aspirant to her favor into the
submissive servant of her wishes, her warm and obedient friend. To
consider mere satellites like Cartmell and myself would be an
anti-climax; yet to us, too, crumbs of kindness fell from the rich man's
table and did their work of binding us closer to Jenny.
If she stayed as she was--the powerful, important Miss Driver--she was
very well. If she married Fillingford, she hardly strengthened her
position, but she decorated it highly, and widened the sphere of her
influence. If she chose to take the risks and openly accepted Octon, she
would indeed strain and impair the fabric she had built, but she could
hardly so injure it that time and skill would not build it again as good
as new. But she would make up her mind to none of the three. She liked
independence and feared its loss by marriage. She liked splendor and
rank, and therefore kept her hold on Fillingford's offer. Finally, she
must like Octon himself, must probably in her heart cling more to him
than she had admitted even to herself; there was no other reason for
dallying with that decision. Across the play of her politics ran this
strong, this curious, personal attraction; she could not let him go. For
the moment she tried for all these things--the independence, the
prestige of prospective splendor and rank, and--well, whatever she was
getting out of the presence of Octon at Hatcham Ford, across the road
from her offices at Ivydene.
It was a delicate equipoise--the least thing might upset it, and in its
fall it might involve much that was of value to Jenny. There was at
least one person who was not averse from anything which would set a
check to Jenny's plans and shake her power.
Jenny and I had been to Fillingford Manor--where, by the way, I took the
opportunity of inspecting Mistress Eleanor Lacey's picture, Fillingford
acting as my guide and himself examining it with much apparent
interest--and, as we drove home, she said to me suddenly:
"Why does Lady Sarah dislike me so much?"
"She has three excellent reasons. You eclipse her, you threaten her, and
you dislike her."
"How does she know I dislike her?"
"How do you know she dislikes you, if you come to that? You women always
seem to me to have special antennae for finding out dislikes. I don't
mean to say they're infallible."
"At any rate Lady Sarah and I seem to agree in this case," laughed
Jenny. "She's right if she thinks I dislike her, and I'm certainly right
in thinking she dislikes me. But how do I threaten her?"
"Come, come! Do you mean me to answer that? Nobody likes the idea of
being turned out--any more than they welcome playing second fiddle."
"I'm always very civil to her--oh, not only at Fillingford! I've taken
pains to pay her all the proper honors about the Institute. Very fussy
she is there, too! She's always dropping in at Ivydene to ask something
stupid. She quite worries poor Mr. Powers."
Jenny might resent Lady Sarah's excessive activity at Ivydene, but she
gave no sign of being disquieted by it. To me, however, it seemed to be,
under the circumstances, rather dangerous; but not being supposed to
know, or to have guessed, the circumstances, I could say nothing.
Jenny's next remark perhaps explained her easiness of mind.
"We don't let her in if we don't want her. I must say that Mr. Powers is
very good at keeping people out. Well, I must try to be more pleasant. I
don't really dislike her so much; it's chiefly that family iciness which
is so trying. It's a bore always to have to be setting to work to melt
people, isn't it?"
I hold no brief against Lady Sarah, and do not regard her as the villain
of the piece. She was a woman of a nature dry, yet despotic; she desired
power and the popularity that gives power, but had not the temper or the
arts to win them. Jenny's triumphs wounded her pride, Jenny's plans
threatened her position in her own home at Fillingford Manor. Her
dislike for Jenny was natural, and it is really impossible to blame very
severely--perhaps, if family feeling is to count, one ought not to blame
at all--her share in the events which were close at hand. It is, in
fact, rather difficult to see what else she could have done. If she had
a right to do it, it is perhaps setting up too high a standard to chide
her for a supposed pleasure in the work.
When we got home, Cartmell was waiting for Jenny, his round face
portentously lengthened by woe. He shook hands with sad gravity.
"What has happened?" she cried. "Not all my banks broken, Mr. Cartmell?"
"I'm very sorry to be troublesome, Miss Jenny, but I've come to make a
formal complaint against Powers. The fellow is doing you a lot of harm
and bringing discredit on the Institute in its very beginnings. He
neglects his work; that doesn't matter so much, there's not a great deal
to do yet; he spends the best part of the mornings lounging about
public-house bars, smoking and drinking and betting, and the best part
of his evenings doing the same, and ogling and flirting with the factory
girls into the bargain. He's a thorough bad lot."
Jenny's face had grown very serious. "I'm sorry. He's--he's an old
friend of mine!"
"That was what you said before. On the strength of it you gave him this
chance. Well, he's proved himself unworthy of it. You must get rid of
him--for the sake of the Institute and for your own sake, too."
"Get rid of him?" She looked oddly at Cartmell. "Isn't that rather
severe? Wouldn't a good scolding from you----?"
"From me? He practically tells me to mind my own business. If there are
any complaints, the fellow says, they'd better be addressed to you!" He
paused for a moment. "He gives the impression that you'd back him up
through thick and thin, and, what's more, he means to give it."
"What does he say to give that impression?" she asked quickly.
"He doesn't say much. It's a nod here, and a wink there--and a lot of
vaporing, so I'm told, about having known you when you were a girl."
"That's silly, but not very bad. Is that all?"
"No. When one of my clerks--Harrison, a very steady man--gave him a
friendly warning that he was going the right way about to lose his job,
he said something very insolent."
"What?" She was sitting very still, very intent.
"He laughed and said he thought you knew better than that. Said in the
way he said it, it--it came to claiming some sort of hold on you, Miss
Jenny. That's a very dangerous idea to get about."
Cartmell was evidently thinking of the old story--of the episode of
Cheltenham days. But had Powers been thinking of that? And was Jenny,
with her bright eyes intent on Cartmell's face? She did not look
alarmed--only rather expectant. She foresaw a fight with Powers, but had
no doubt that she could beat him--if only the mischief had not gone too
far.
"He seemed to refer to--Cheltenham?" she asked, smiling.
Cartmell was the embarrassed party to the conversation. "I--I'm afraid
so, Miss Jenny," he stammered, and his red face grew even redder.
"Oh, I'll settle that all right," Jenny assured him.
"You'll give him the sack?" Cartmell asked bluntly.
She had many good reasons to produce against that, just as she had
produced many for bringing him to Catsford. "I'll reduce him to order,
anyhow," she promised.
That was what she wanted--to bring him to heel, not to lose him. But
surely it was no longer for his own sake, nor even to satisfy that
instinct of hers which forbade the alienation of the least of her human
possessions? There was more than that in it. He was part of the
scheme--he fitted into that explanation which my brain had insisted on
conceiving as I walked home from Ivydene. Of this aspect of the case
Cartmell was entirely innocent.
By one of her calculated bits of audacity--concealing much, she would
seem to have nothing to conceal--she took me with her when she went down
to Ivydene the next morning, to haul Powers over the coals. She would
have me present at the interview between them. Well, it may also have
been that she did not want too much plain speaking--or, rather,
preferred to do what was to be done in that line herself.
She attacked him roundly; he stood before her not daring to resist
openly, yet covertly insolent, hinting at what he dared not say
plainly--certainly not before me, for he had not yet decided what game
to play. He waited to see what he could still get out of Jenny. She
rehearsed to him Cartmell's charges as to his conduct; its idleness, its
unseemliness, the disrepute it brought on her and on the Institute.
Somehow all this sounded a little bit unreal--or, if not unreal, shall I
say preliminary? Powers confessed part, denied part, averred a prejudice
in Cartmell--this last not without some reason. She rose to her gravest
charge.
"And you seem to have the impertinence to hint that you can do what you
like, and that I shall stand it all," she said.
"I never said that, Miss Driver. I may have said you had a kind heart
and wouldn't be hard on an old friend." He had his cloth cap in his
hands and kept twisting it about and fiddling with it as he talked. He
smiled all the time, insinuatingly, yet rather uneasily, too.
"It's not your place to make any reference to me," she said haughtily.
"I'll thank you to leave me out of your conversation with these curious
friends of yours, Mr. Powers."
He looked at her, licking his lips. I was a mere spectator, though I do
not think either of them had for a moment, up to now, forgotten my
presence; indeed, both were, in a sense, playing their parts before me.
"I don't know that my friends are more curious than other people's, Miss
Driver. People choose friends as it suits them, I suppose."
She caught the insinuation--he must have meant that she should. Her eyes
blazed with a sudden anger. I knew the signs of that; when it came,
prudence was apt to be thrown to the winds. She rose from her chair and
walked up to where he stood.
"What do you mean by that?" she demanded.
He was afraid; he cowered before her fury: "Nothing," he grumbled
sullenly.
"Then don't say things like that. I don't like them. I won't have them
said. It almost sounded as if you meant a reference to me."
Of course he had meant one. She saw the danger and faced it. She relied
on her personal domination. He was threatening, she would terrify. She
went on in a cool, hard voice--very bitter, very dangerous.
"Once before in your life you threatened me," she said. "I was a child
then, and had no friends. You got off safe--you even got a little
money--a little very dirty money." (He did not like that; he flushed red
and picked at his cap furiously.) "Now I'm a woman and I've got friends.
You won't get any money, and you won't get off safe. Be sure of that.
Who'll employ you if I won't? What character have you except what I
choose to give? I think, if I were a man, I'd thrash you where you
stand, Mr. Powers."
This remark may perhaps have been unladylike--that would have been
Chat's word for it. For my part I thoroughly appreciated and enjoyed it.
She was a fine sight in a royal rage like this.
"But though I'm not a man, I've friends who are. If you dare to use your
tongue against me, look out!"
He could not stand against her nor face her. Indeed it would have been
hard to fight her, unless by forgetting that she was a woman. He cringed
before her, yet with an obstinately vicious look in his would-be humble
eyes.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Driver--indeed I do. I--I've been wrong. Don't
be hard on me. There's my poor wife and family! You shall have no
further cause of complaint. As for threatening, why, how could I? What
could I do against you, Miss Driver?"
Did his humility, hardly less disagreeable than his insolence, disarm
her wrath? Did her mood change--or had the moment come for an artistic
dissimulation? I must confess that I do not know; but suddenly she
struck him playfully on the point of the chin with her glove and began
to laugh. "Then, you dear silly old Powers, don't be such a fool," she
said. "Don't quarrel with your bread and butter, and don't take so much
whisky and water. Because whisky brings vapors, and then you think
you're a great man, and get romancing about what you could do if you
liked. I've stood a good deal from you, haven't I? I would stand a good
deal for old times' sake. You know that; but is it kind to presume on
it, to push me too far just because you know I like you?"
This speech I defend less than the unladylike one; I liked her better on
the subject of the thrashing. But there is no denying that it was very
well done. Was it wholly insincere? Perhaps not. In any event she meant
to conquer Powers, and was not without reason, or precedent, in trying
to see if blarney would aid threats.
He responded plausibly, summoning his mock gentlemanliness to cover his
submission, and, I may add, his malice. He regretted his mistakes, he
deplored misunderstanding, he avowed unlimited obligation and eternal
gratitude. He even ventured on hinting at the memory of a sentimental
attachment. "I can take from you what I would from no other lady." (At
no moment, however agitated, would Powers forget to say "lady.") The
remark was accompanied by an unmistakable leer.
Even that, which I bore with difficulty, Jenny accepted graciously. She
gave him her hand, saying, "I know. Now let's forget all this and work
pleasantly together." She glanced at me. "And Mr. Austin, too, will
forget all about our little quarrel?"
"I'm always willing to be friends with Mr. Powers, if he'll let me," I
said.
"And so are all my friends, I'm sure," said Jenny.
Going out, we had a strange encounter, which stands forth vivid in
memory. Jenny's brougham was waiting perhaps some thirty yards up the
road toward Catsford: the coachman had got down and was smoking; it took
him a moment or two to mount. In that space of time, while we waited at
the gate, Octon came out from Hatcham Ford and lounged across the road
toward us. At the same instant a landau drove up rapidly from the other
direction, going toward Catsford. In it sat Lady Sarah Lacey. She stared
at Octon and cut him dead; she bowed coldly and slightly to Jenny; she
inclined her head again in response to a low bow and a florid flourish
of his cap from Powers. I lifted my hat, but received no response. Jenny
returned the salute as carelessly as it was given, bestowed a
recognition hardly more cordial on Octon, and stepped into the brougham
which had now come up. As we drove off, Powers stood grinning soapily;
Octon had turned on his heel again and slouched slowly back, to his own
house.
Jenny threw herself into the corner of the brougham, her body well away,
but her eyes on my face. For many minutes she sat like this; I turned my
eyes away from her; the silence was uncomfortable and ominous. At last
she spoke.
"You've guessed something, Austin?"
I turned my head to her. "I couldn't help it."
She nodded, rather wearily, then smiled at me. "The signal's at
'Danger,'" she said.